This two-day conference aims to foster discussion about the relationship between art and power, including reflections on the appropriation of visual and print culture by political regimes; the intersections of so-called high culture and popular culture in dictatorships or periods of political crisis; and the constructions of history in light of current events.
Speakers will include poets, curators, historians of art and propaganda, and contemporary artists. Spain serves as a central point of reference for a number of the presentations, including cases such as the recent exhibition Campo Cerrado: Arte y poder en la posguerra española, 1939-1953, a major exhibition about visual culture, architecture, design, and exhibition history under Franco at the Reina Sofia Museum; the efforts to return Guernica to Spain during the dictatorship and Transition; and the appropriation of Picasso to brand Malaga a center for artistic tourism. In addition, a number of the participants will offer perspectives related to art during political crisis elsewhere, with presentations that focus on cases such as contemporary Venezuela, and the recent exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women 1965-1985.
PROGRAM
Friday, November 17th, 2017
5:00 p.m. Welcome
Christine Poggi, Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director, NYU Institute of Fine Arts
5:15 p.m. Introduction
María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, Associate Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Fall 2017 King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair in Spanish Culture, NYU
5:30 p.m. Keynote
Luis García Montero, Poet and Professor of Spanish Literature, Universidad de Granada
Un orden disidente. El regreso de la poesía al sentido de lo común (A Dissident Order. The Return of Poetry to the Common Sense)
6:30 p.m. PANEL 1: Museum Piece? Exhibiting War and Totalitarianisms
Catherine J. Morris, Sackler Senior Curator, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum
We wanted a revolution. Black Radical Women, 1965-85
María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, Associate Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Fall 2017 King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair in Spanish Culture, NYU
Closed Fields? Museums and Memory
Francesc Torres, artist
At War. Conflict and Representation
Respondent: Miriam Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU
Reception to follow
Saturday, November 18th, 2017
11:00 a.m. Introduction
Miriam Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU
11:15 a.m.: PANEL 2: Very Real Fictions: Creation and Political Commentary
Germán Labrador, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University
Political Regimes of Invisibility. Aesthetics and Censorship in Contemporary Spain
Miriam Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU
Spanish Dynasties: Portraits, Copies, and Controversy
Esperanza Mayobre, artist
Postcards from Venezuela
Respondent: Carey Kasten, Associate Professor of Spanish, Modern Languages and Literature (LC), Fordham University
12:45 p.m. Lunch Break
3:00 p.m. PANEL 3: Politics, Consumerism, Tourism and Culture: Picasso’s Guernica
Genoveva Tusell, Professor, Universidad Nacional a Distancia, Madrid
Guernica’s arrival to Spain. Memory, Political Commitment and Democracy
Daniel García Andújar, artist
Picasso as backdrop
Rogelio López Cuenca, artist
Pic@$$o
Respondent: Jordana Mendelson, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures, NYU
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Co-organizers:
María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco, Associate Professor, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Fall 2017 King Juan Carlos I of Spain Chair in Spanish Culture, NYU
Miriam Basilio, Associate Professor of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU
The symposium will be in English and Spanish. Simultaneous translation will be provided.